royal pain

Last week, I tried using royal icing on sugar cookies for the first time. My friend's son is turning 5 this month and is having a dinosaur party. We thought we'd attempt making dino eggs cookies to give out in goody bags. When Tastespotting and Foodgawker failed to deliver, we went to Flickr for some inspiration. Found very cute Yoshi eggs cookies to copy. Thought it would be a piece of cake. Yeah. Right. Didn't exactly turn out like the picture. There's a reason people charge an arm and a leg for sugar cookies!

So with V-Day in our immediate future, sugar cookies were still on my mind and on my to-bake list. There are so many talented bakers\bloggers out there. I found so many beautifully decorated cookies to draw inspiration from! Not one to give up so easily, I set out to make a proper batch of cut-out cookies as opposed to the sugar cookie bars that I had used for poor Yoshi. The cookies came out beautiful, very tender and delicate, if a bit thick. We'll blame that one on the rolling pin.

 So 3-plus hours later, the cookies didn't quite turn out like I had hoped, but hey, for a second try, I think they're pretty good! They tasted good too! I'm sure my mom's junior book club will have no complaints!

Sour Cream Cut-Out Cookies

Source: anecdotes and apple cores

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

6 cups sifted cake flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1.  Using a stand mixer, cream together your butter and sugar until smooth (2-3 minutes).  Add in one egg at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Stir in the sour cream and vanilla and beat until smooth and well-combined.  

2.  Whisk together your dry ingredients in a separate bowl.  Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture to form a dough that is stiff enough to roll out.  (You may need to add more or less flour). Refrigerate your dough for 30 minutes before rolling out. 

3.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Roll out your dough to 1/4 inch thickness on a well-floured surface.  Cut into shapes of all sizes and varieties! (My heart cookie cutter made 36 cookies)  Place on an parchment lined cookie sheet and bake in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes. (My cookies were a very generous 1/4 inch and took 10-12 minutes to bake. They were barely golden, but the tops should spring back when pressed.) 

I used Wilton's Royal Icing recipe to decorate the cookies. I have no experience with Royal Icing, and I'm not sure what consistency it should have, but I only beat the ingredients together for a few minutes before it formed peaks, and nowhere near the 7-10 minutes the recipe states. I also had to add a lot of water for it to be of a consistency where it could be used on the cookies... Also, the icing on the cookies got kinda soft after two days. I think more experimenting with royal icing is in my future. I came across recipes that add corn syrup to the icing. Might try that next time...